Early Voting begins Saturday for December 8th runoff

Early voting begins Saturday at 8:30 AM for the December 8th election, which features the secretary of state’s runoff race. Early voting will continue, except on Sunday, through December 1st. Voter turnout for the November 6th election was just over 50%. But pollster John Couvillon of JMC Analytics expects a much lower turnout for this election.

"Off the top of my head, I would suspect something in the range of 20-to-25%, because you have no national races anymore and all six of our Congressional incumbents were re-elected in the primaries," said Couvillon.

The Secretary of State’s office says there are 134 candidate runoffs in 47 parishes. Couvillon says the Shreveport mayoral race is one high profile election heading to a run-off, plus there are other local races.

"So you have school board runoffs scattered around the state and in East Baton Rouge there are two new taxes being sought," said Couvillon.

Eight parishes have just the secretary of state race on the ballot, which pits Republican Kyle Ardoin versus Democrat Gwen Collins-Greenup. Couvillon expects Ardoin to win the race easily.

"Gwen Collins-Greenup doesn't seem to have the resources to get her message out, I would think something like a 60-40 race for Kyle," said Couvillon.